Are You Using An Open Document Format?

The vast majority of people have probably never heard of open document formats. That’s not a bad thing. Generally, people should concentrate on what they create, not how they create. But most of us should be concerned about who can access what we create. Whether it’s for commercial reasons or for promoting our ideas, we usually want to reach the widest audience possible.

Where available, the World Wide Web has revolutionised people’s access to information. This has been achieved in no small part because web pages are created according to an openly published standard; namely (X)HMTL. Any company or individual can create and use software to make web pages, any company or individual can create software to read web pages and anyone with access to the internet can read the same web page in the web browser of their choice.

This isn’t the case in the off line world where the overwhelming majority of documents such as letters, reports, presentations and spreadsheets are created using proprietary formats created by Microsoft. At the moment, we’re able to exchange these documents because Microsoft have a monopoly on the market for office software, but that might be about to change.

There is growing momentum among institutions towards adopting the OpenDocument format. It’s not a new format, but it might be about to reach it’s tipping point in adoption.

So What Are Open Document Formats?

An open format is simply an agreed specification that any software creator can implement in their software. It’s information about how to create and use documents. Open documents formats are not the same as Open Source software. They can be implemented in free or commercial, proprietary or open source software. One open format has emerged for office type documents. The OpenDocument Format is a published ISO and IEC International Standard, ISO/IEC 26300:2006 and therefore freely available for anyone to use.

Adobe’s PDF format was also recently accepted by the ISO as an open standard ISO 32000. This means that control over the development of the format has been handed over to the ISO and the full specification will be published at the beginning of 2008.

2008 A Year Of Change

2008 could be the year of the OpenDocument Format and you should be aware of this subtle shift in how we publish and access information.

When computers first began to appear on desks in offices, one of their main uses was for word processing. Letters, reports, books etc were difficult to exchange between people not using the same word processing software package.

Then Microsoft Word began to emerge as the clear leader in the market and exchanging documents was much easier because of its prevalence. People began to assume that you would have Word on your machine and so, like the brand name Hoover becoming synonymous with vacuuming, Word document became synonymous with any kind of letter or report exchange. In fact any kind of exchange of text.

We’re now entering a new phase where once again, people won’t have to think about whether or not you have the correct software required to open their document But this isn’t because of a monopoly that guarantees you’ll have Word on your machine, it’s because the format we exchange documents in will be open and transparent and the software used to create and read these documents will become irrelevant.

Microsoft Word won’t disappear. Remember, anyone can implement the OpenDocument Format, but it will become less relevant and when that happens, more people will opt for free, lightweight word processors that aren’t loaded with features they don’t require.

Who Is Adopting The New Standards

Back in the Summer of 2006 , the Belgian Government committed to ensuring that all documents would be exchanged in an open format by September 2008. Other national governments (Brazil, Denmark, France, Malaysia, Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Thailand), US States and local authorities are adopting similar measures.

As of January 2008, the Danish parliament, Folketinget, will have to ensure that all digital information exchanged between government departments and the Danish people are based on open standards. They have adopted the OpenDocument format.

The most recent country to join the move towards open standards at a government level is the Netherlands. In December 2007 they decided to adopt the OpenDocument Format for all government documents with a very ambitious deadline of April 2008. Government departments will be allowed to (and will probably have to) continue using proprietary formats beyond April 2008, but they will have to justify their reasons. Dutch local authorities will have until 2009 to make the switch.

Norway has also jumped into the fray and will require all information on publicly funded web sites to be published either in HTML, PDF or ODF.

What Are The Benefits Of Using Open Standards

As you can see from the list above, many organisations in the vanguard of this emerging change are governments and local authorities. I believe this is because there are very compelling economic arguments presented by being able to use free software. But there are also issues of information democracy and information ownership. The key points are that moving to open standards enable organisations to:

• save money by choosing free software such as Open Office
• break vendor lock-ins and get the best deal
• ensure that they own their information, are not reliant on a particular software provider and their information is portable to another system
• preserve documents of political and historical importance in a format that is openly document and owned by no one
• provide access to their documents to any one irrespective of their technological capabilities.

Cost isn’t the only factor, but ever decreasing hardware costs, are starting to show the real cost of software as a percentage of purchasing a computer.

This Isn’t An Anti-Microsoft Rant

I make my living using Microsoft products and have done for many years now. I use Windows, Mac OS X and Ubuntu and at the end of the day I don’t really care which one I use, so long as I can get the job done. Interoperability of all information is still a long way off. The web has become a lot more interoperable and the adoption of open standards in the office environment will help bring interoperability a lot closer.

The adoption of open standards may actually benefit Microsoft in the short-term. Microsoft have proposed their own open format to the ISO, Open Office XML and a decision will be made about whether it is accepted as a standard in February 2008.

With increasing legislative pressure for organisations to move towards Open Document Formats some may choose to upgrade to newer versions of Microsoft Office which use OOXML as the default format and can publish to PDF.

How Does This Relate To My Website?

When was the last time you uploaded a document to your website for your visitors to download. A booking form, a membership form, course details etc. Last week? Last month? Chances are is was a Word document.

Though you may not realise it, Microsoft Office doesn’t come pre-installed on all computers and it isn’t free. You are therefore inadvertently requiring your reader to have a specific piece of software on their machine to be able to use the document.

In most cases at the moment, this isn’t really an issue but as more and more of the world goes online and the reach of your message stretches beyond your own borders, you really cannot say with certainty that your readers will have the required software to access your files. Not because they are out of date or technologically challenged, but because they have taken a technology leap over you and have entered at a point where open standards are not unusual, desktop software is not the dominant force and Microsoft is an option.